Prisoners have gone on hunger strike demanding the lifting of the isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan. The resistance will continue until the isolation is removed, said the prisoners.

A hunger strike demanding to end the isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan has been going on in Turkish prisons since 27 November.

After the Turkish government responded to criticism of Öcalan's detention conditions from the EU by imposing an official ban on visits, the prisoners launched a new protest. The action, initiated by prisoners from the PKK and the PAJK, is not only targeting Öcalan's isolation, but also the additional personal restrictions and human rights violations that political prisoners have been exposed to since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the first stage of the protest, the hunger strike is held in groups, fasting for five days at a time. The third hunger strike group has now taken over the protest. Mehmet Abay and Vedat Bektaş were relieved by Veysi Denizhan and Serhat Borak in Tarsus No. 1 Prison. The prisoners said: “We are determined to break this inhuman isolation through resistance. We announce again that we will fight to the end. We will operate in the spirit of the 14 July [1982] Death Fast and crown our resistance with victory. We promise. Resistance and truth will prevail.”

In Erzurum prison, women prisoners Hamide Yüksel and Zeynep Yıldırım went on a hunger strike.

In 2019, the isolation was broken as a result of a mass hunger strike started by Kurdish politician Leyla Güven at the end of 2018. Thousands of prisoners and many people around the world took part in the 200-day hunger strike.